ITV says that reports of dialog with Apple are ‘speculative’, ends 18-month rumor

If you visited some of your favourite Apple websites this morning, you may have seen reports that suggested UK television broadcaster ITV was at odds with Apple over the supposed use of the mark ‘iTV’ for its rumoured new TV sets.

It had been suggested by The Telegraph that ITV’s CEO Adam Crozier had written a letter to Apple, querying the use of the name in its products. To many (including us), it was a continuation of a report from August 2010 that ITV was consulting its lawyers over a potential clash of brand names.

The broadcaster said at the time that it valued its “intellectual property rights” and that it holds “a large number of registered trade marks for both the ITV name and our logos,” suggesting it would protect its brand should it need to.

Considering Apple hasn’t once mentioned ‘iTV’ in any of its public announcements to date, it took a mass of media reports to adopt it as the next Apple product name.

Today, ITV has issued a statement to The Verge, stating that the reports were “entirely speculative” and moved to draw a line under the matter:

“The Telegraph’s piece is entirely speculative, and there has been no recent communication between ITV and Apple. ITV has no further comment on the matter.”

Another Apple rumour debunked. This one had an amazing 18-month run — shame.

Matt is based near London and is the News Editor for The Next Web. You can follow him on Twitter, subscribe to his updates on Facebook and catch up with him on Google+. You can reach Matt via email at matt@thenextweb.com.